Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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So Clinton’s a woman. So what?

Clockwise from upper left: Tatcher, Merkel, Clinton, May

Who’s the odd woman out?

Why are identity politics so important to Americans? Why must we focus so much on labels — black, gay, Jewish, women, etc. — to define a person, especially if that person is running for top office? It doesn’t seem all that important elsewhere.

Take the latest election in the UK for the Conservative party leader. The ultimate victor was a woman, Theresa May. After winnowing a pool of candidates, it came down to two female candidates. At that stage, there was a little kerfuffle about mothers versus women without children, but it blew over pretty quickly.

Of course, Britain elected a female leader in 1979 (who at the time had been Conservative party leader for four years). Maggie Thatcher served as PM for 11 years.

Germany has a female chancellor and her gender doesn’t seem to factor into the conversation much.

India, Brazil and Argentina have all had female leaders. So have Israel, Switzerland and parts of Scandinavia.

Yet America still thinks it’s massive that a woman is running for president. And Madeline Albright, the former secretary of state, recently stated, in essence, that all woman are obliged to vote for a woman candidate — otherwise there’s a “special place in hell” reserved for them. Saying that people must vote along gender/race/ethnic lines seems the opposite of progress, but apparently not to Albright and the many others on the Clinton side who think her gender is all women need to know before casting their ballot.

Some American political pundits are predicting an age of female leadership (again, so US-centric). The funny thing is, when Americans talk about Clinton and female leadership, they assume that women vote primarily Democrat. Yet when one looks at the UK and Germany, both of the female leaders there are the leading center-right governments. In fact it’s Clinton, as a left of center leader, that will be the odd woman out! How do the identity politicians (such as Albright) answer that? Could it be that woman, contrary to the liberal brush they’re so often uniformly painted with, are actually capable of thinking independently and choosing their own political path?




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